Necho II

Necho II (died 595 BC) was Pharaoh of Egypt from 610 BC to 595 BC, succeeding Psamtik I and preceding Psamtik II.

Biography
Necho was the son of Pharaoh Psamtik I and his wife Mehtenweshket, and he became Pharaoh in 610 BC. He attempted to assist the remnants of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which had been reduced to a rump state at Harran after the Babylonians, Cimmerians, and Scythians sacked Nineveh in 612 BC. In 609 BC, he personally led a sizeable force to help the Assyrians, and his large mercenary army defeated and killed King Josiah of Judah at Megiddo before he went on to capture Kadesh on the Orontes. He became the first pharaoh to cross the Euphrates since Thutmose III, but he failed to capture Harran, retreated to Syria, and was forced to withdraw as the Assyrians were destroyed. On the return trip to Egypt, Necho deposed Jehoahaz of Judah and installed Jehoiakim as the new Judean king. In 609 BC, when the Babylonian king Nabopolassar captured Kumukh from the Egyptians, Necho retook the city after four months and executed the Babylonian garrison. After Nabopolassar returned to Babylon in 605 BC due to poor health, the Egyptians routed the leaderless Babylonians. Nabopolassar then passed command of his army to his son Nebuchadnezzar II, who led the Babylonians to a decisive victory over the Egyptians at Carchemish. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Necho's hopes of restoring Egypt's Levantine empire, conquering Egyptian territory from the Euphrates to the Sinai. Necho was unable to support a revolt against the Babylonians in Ashkelon, and he was barely able to repel a Babylonian invasion in 601 BC. He spent his remaining years allying with the Carians and the Greeks of Cyrene, and he commissioned an expedition against the Phoenicians before his death in 595 BC.